When I walked into the Montana Association of Elementary and Middle School Principals conference Jan. 26, I expected to post-up against the back wall, take a few notes and introduce myself to the new superintendent of public instruction, Elsie Arntzen.

I did not expect that evening to turn into the most-read Tribune article over the next four days and the second-most read article for the month of January.

I heard about Arntzen’s arrival in Great Falls the night before the conference. My priority was holding a quick meet-and-greet. If I could slip in a few questions, great. I knew I’d write an article, but I thought it would be a quick hit on the primary goals of the OPI’s new administration.

As anticipated, I scooted through the tables and made my way to the back wall, popped out my notepad and started scribbling down Arntzen’s response to the first of nine questions submitted in advance from Montana school administrators and given to the superintendent prior to the event.

What do you see as the major barriers to student achievement in Montana? How do you propose to support school districts in addressing and mitigating those?

She wrapped up her answer, and I looked at my notes, frustrated and confused because in all of my writing, nothing I wrote down made sense. I thought I was paying attention, but clearly I missed something.

What are your priorities for supporting the education of public school children in our state?

Arntzen(Photo: Courtesy photo)

Again, I scribbled some notes, but couldn’t make sense of them. Then, I noticed the administrators around me. The next question came and I chose to write nothing. Instead, I started an audio recording and watched the reactions of the 100 or so administrators around me.

Heads ducked behind hands to whisper frustration, brows were furrowed, some — quite audibly — rebuked the superintendent for avoiding the question and speaking in an indecipherable stream of consciousness.

“Did I get an A on that one?” Arntzen asked. My recorder picked up someone answering with a firm, “No.” “Are there any follow-up questions to her response?” the moderator asked. “Did she even answer the original question?” another administrator said.

Then, Great Falls Public Schools Superintendent Tammy Lacey stood up to ask her question about federally funded preschools. It was a tense moment. The biggest player in education in Great Falls was politely, but pointedly challenging the biggest player in education in Montana.

Arntzen, Lacey and I have all received criticism following my report in the Tribune. Attention has been taken away from, what I felt, was the real issue. Though important, it wasn’t about publicly funded preschools, about Arntzen’s family or about party lines. No matter how you feel about those involved, I believe it can’t be ignored that questions were not answered and meandering responses were peppered with falsehoods.

The fact is the story changed. As a journalist, I cannot sit in the back of the room and listen to a publicly elected official avoid her constituents’ questions and then go back to the office and not address it. It is my job to hold officials accountable for their words and actions. That was the story. That’s what happened at the MAEMSP conference. That’s what people have been talking about since.

I put two calls into the OPI to schedule a conversation with Arntzen the week after the article ran. I received an email response letting me know she was too busy with department meetings this week, but I may be able to speak with her in Great Falls in the future.

In partial defense of Arntzen, she is the first Republican elected for the superintendent position since 1988. During the election period, the school system backed the Democratic candidate, Melissa Romano. Arntzen was likely standing in front of an audience already primed to be unreceptive to her position.

But, even if that is the case, it doesn’t excuse the answers Arntzen provided and the few falsehoods that slipped into her responses. I scribbled the falsities I heard in my notebook and checked them with my collected audio back at the office.

Yes, Arntzen told the crowd she was a principal. No, Arntzen was never a principal — a fact confirmed by her administration.

Arntzen said in the same answer that OPI is under an internal investigation, an external federal investigation and an investigation that prohibited her from speaking about the details of the investigation. I have since confirmed with the U.S. Department of Education that there is not an investigation. Arntzen has since come out and said the Helena firm Communication and Management Services is being contracted to do a review of policies related to reporting student proficiency data to the federal government.

I came back to the office in, I admit, a panic. I had recordings of the conference, rambling notes, recorded information I knew to be false and the duty to accurately convey what happened in that room.

A story I expected to take maybe an hour to write when I got back took me more than four hours. I transcribed all of my audio and spent long stretches of time staring at her answers written out as they were said.

With the help of my editors, I made the decision to leave the quotes as intact and complete as possible. I thought the best way to convey Arntzen’s answers at the conference would be to let Arntzen’s quotes speak for themselves. I did the same with Lacey’s questions and comments.

I focused more on the audience reaction than I typically would in an article, but in this case I thought it was important to bring the reader into the room and to capture the palpable emotions. This was not a typical introductory meeting.

It wasn’t just me, confused in the back of the room. It was more than 100 of the people most directly affected by the superintendent.

Despite Arntzen’s claims in other publications that I misinterpreted her words through my transcripts, I look forward to working with the superintendent over the coming years and hope we can move forward with a professional relationship.

But, I will continue to hold her and her administration accountable for their words and actions just as I hope she does for me.